Ode To Joy

Ode to Joy is stunning live performance exploring one of the most famous works of classical music through the unique perspective of Deaf culture.

The Cork Deaf Community Choir and artist Amanda Coogan performed Beethoven’s Ode to Joy in Irish Sign Language alongside Lianne Quigley and Alvean Jones of the Dublin Theatre of the Deaf at Crawford Art Gallery. Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the European Union’s anthem, has renewed contemporary context as a powerful artistic example of conflict between darkness and light, this performance will be an aural and visual feast.

Beethoven himself was completely deaf when writing this masterpiece - in embodying his music from an Irish Deaf community perspective, the Cork Deaf Choir and the Dublin Theatre of the Deaf bring with them not just a beauty in performance but also an embodiment of the struggle for acceptance and equality. This will be a visually stunning new work of performance art, re-framing the experiences of the oppressed and asking the audience to recognise the resilience in the human spirit.

Ode to Joy - Deaf Cultural Exchange 2023-24

In a cultural exchange between Irish Deaf community and Latvian Deaf community, artists Amanda Coogan, Lianne Quigley with members of Cork Deaf Community Choir, Dublin Theatre for the Deaf and Cork Midsummer Festival, are collaborating with the Latvian Association of the Deaf to develop live performances of Ode To Joy as part of Homo Novus Festival 2024. The collaboration is ongoing throughout August 2024, with performances on Saturday 31 August at 4pm and Sunday 1 September at 6pm at the iconic Kokaru Hall in Riga.

Ode to Joy with Cork Deaf Community Choir was produced and premiered with Cork Midsummer Festival 2023. This 2024 collaboration supported by Cork Midsummer Festival builds on workshops and flash mob hosted in September 2023 as part of the Beyond Participation EU Network concluding symposium and sharing of works developed across partner countries.

As part of the collaboration between Irish Deaf/ISL-using artists and the Latvian Deaf community, a collective Accessibility Celebration is being hosted at the Festival Centre with sign language karaoke with Amanda Coogan, Lianne Quigley and collaborators, followed by DJ Mario.

Supported by Culture Ireland and Culture Moves Europe. This work was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.

The accompanying music is a performance of Symphony No. 9 by the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Brophy, with a specially-formed choir and Irish and European soloists for the EU50 Gala Concert. This recording is courtesy of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs.

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Ode To Joy

Amanda Coogan, Lianne Quigley and Alvean Jones of Dublin Theatre of the Deaf devised this immersive performance with Cork Deaf Community Choir, produced by Cork Midsummer Festival, premiered in Cork in June 2023 as part of the festival, and repersented as part of Freude! Freude! at Douglas Hyde Gallery in October 2023.

Ode to Joy is an embodied performance which translates Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ode to Joy chorus into Sign Language (SL) and reinterprets this famous symphony through the lens of the Deaf experience. Using SL as a choreographic language, Coogan, Quigley and the Latvian Association of the Deaf reinterpret this revolutionary symphony. We claim Beethoven as a deaf artist and re-frame the experiences of the oppressed, claiming equality and celebrating Deaf people, their culture and our beloved Sign Language.

Supported by the Arts Council and presented as part of Creative Europe funded BEyond PARTicipation project with venue support by Crawford Art Gallery.

Image credit Jed Niezgoda.